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July 2017 - Teaching Letter - Accepted Not Rejected

Hebrews 10:14; Isaiah 53:3. The number one emotional wound in our culture today is rejection. Rejection is defined as, the sense of being unwanted and unloved. It is a feeling of always being on the outside looking in. I am not one that is much into psychology, but there are reasons or causes of rejection. Some of these may be: 1) A breakdown of our family structure. We are all created for love. The most important love is the love of the father. Love in any aspect must be actively express. A lack thereof may produce rejection. 2) Isaiah 54:6 NIV, "The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit, a wife who married young only to be rejected," says your God. Failed marriages may cause rejection. 3) Rejection by friends, rejection at school because of appearance or anything of the like, may cause it.
The solution is provided for by Jesus on the cross. Isaiah 53:3, "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." John 1:11, "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." Even Jesus’ mother and brothers did not accept him initially as the Christ. Psalm 69 is a messianic Psalm. Versus 7-9 read, "Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me." The ultimate rejection of Jesus came in Matthew 27:45-51, by His Father. It was the first time in the history of the universe, that Jesus prayed, and there came no answer. He died not of crucifixion, but of a broken heart.
The New Testament tells us nothing of what went on inside of Jesus, but the Old Testament does tell us. Psalm 69:20-21, "Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found not. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Crucifixion would not have brought such a quick death. Mark 15:42-45, "And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, an honorable counselor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. And Pilate marveled if he were already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead. And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph." In Matthew 27:50-51, the veil of the Temple was torn from top to bottom, signifying that we can have acceptance. Jesus bore our rejection, so that we may have His acceptance. Ephesians 1:6 says, that we are accepted in the “beloved,” meaning Jesus. The word accepted means, highly favored. God has no second-class children. All God's children are welcome.
The worst thing you can do for a person struggling with rejection is, to tell them to do more. Simply accept what Jesus has done for us at the cross at Calvary. We are not unwanted, we have nothing to be ashamed of. Jesus was rejected so that we could be accepted - Forever!